Most televideo services provide this when a provider subscribes to a service such as Health Tap. Using telehealth requires 'stage presence' and a formal structure to maximize it's reliability.
Get ready to text your doctor.
Why go to the doctor, when you can just Skype or text her? Skype is available on mobile, Mac, and Android. That may sound glib, but these days, it’s a serious question. And in a field where many trends—skyrocketing drug prices and healthcare costs—tend to defy logic, the rise of telemedicine is one that makes a lot of sense, said Vivian Lee, CEO of University of Utah Health Care, speaking on a panel about virtual health at Fortune’s Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego Regulations such as HIPAA have interfered with the dissemination of telehealth, however software is rapidly catching up with the need for cybersecurity. Normal text, sms and chat features are not yet compliant with the needs.
Suneel Gupta, head of mobile, for One Medical, said patients engage with his company’s virtual health platform 25 to 30 times a week. While there’s a convenience factor, there are also safety implications. Telemedicine keeps the sickest patients at home, and out of the hospital, where there is greater risk of infection.
Especially, as the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services makes its push to value-based, rather than fee-based care, it’s likely that telemedicine, which saves costs and improves outcomes, has a role to play, said Lee.
That’s not to say there aren’t a few wrinkles to work out. Not all doctors are naturals at virtual care. They often have to work on their “webside manner,” said Hill Ferguson, CEO of Doctor on Demand, a telemedicine company that serves corporations and large employers. (Ron Gutman, CEO and Founder of HealthTap, another virtual health start-up, says his company’s users actually prefer texting to video care.)
And regulation hasn’t yet caught up with the telemedicine trend. Doctors must be licensed in both the state in which they’re giving care, as well as the state in which that care is being received. For health systems that have hospitals in many states, that’s an especially tedious challenge.
Oh, and one other thing: in many cases, telemedicine sessions are not reimbursed. That makes it an even more difficult for health providers to decide whether to build out virtual health infrastructure.
Doctors Work on 'Webside Manner' As Telemedicine Becomes More Popular
Telemedicine has been on the rise for a long time now and it will only continue this growth at even faster levels. It is important that healthcare firms, doctors and patients adopt it so as to provide better telemedicine services for people.
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